Senior Lindsey Johnson placed second in the School Spirit competition in That Takes the Cake! Sugar Art Show and Cake Competition, Feb. 27-28

“It was really exciting,” Johnson said. “It was just really awesome.”

Johnson originally knew about the showcase when she worked with an executive chef that used to work for Sandra Bullock’s restaurant.

“She was so nice,” Johnson said. “She taught me so much, like how to work with fondant and layering cakes. We did a wedding cake together for the bride and groom. She let me have all the control for the groom’s cake. She was just really awesome.”

It took Johnson a week and a half to make her six-tiered cake for the show.

“There were about five layers for each tier,” Johnson said. “I had to make the cake in advance so I can start making to decorations like the banners and the quotes. Right when I got home I started backing until 9 o’clock at night. It took a long time but it was fun.”

The competition that she placed in was to make a cake to represent the school’s history. She created a Rouse themed cake that placed her in second place.

“It was really exiting. It was just awesome. It was like oh, ok. I was really glad that I got second place.”

To design her cake, Johnson went to a cake store in Georgetown and bought edible pens where the ink is colored sugar. On one tier of the cake, she wrote quotes from Rouse faculty staff, interviewing people like namesake Charley Rouse, principal John Graham and Nurse Jan Carpenter.

“One that I can’t forget was Nurse Carpenter’s and it was, ‘Oh how we have grown, from one floor to four portables and a parking lot.’ I thought it was funny,” Johnson said.

Although she was on a school camping trip, Johnson entrusted her mom to deliver the cake.

“The whole camping trip I was thinking, ‘She may be calling me right now saying that she dropped the cake and I wouldn’t know until I get back tomorrow,’ ” Johnson said. “It was so stressful, but I trusted her with it.”